Overview
The Grounded Q&A System lets counsel question the record directly, as they would a colleague who has read every document: what a party knew and when, who approved a change, whether a certificate had a test behind it. The answer draws together the documents that bear on the point, wherever they sit in the record.
A theory can be tested before it is pleaded, a client’s question answered from the documents, and a factual point checked in the course of drafting. Where the record does not establish a point, the system says so rather than offering an answer it cannot support.
Where it is used
Case theory
Testing a line of argument against the record before it is advanced.
Client advice
Answering a client’s factual question with the documents that establish the answer.
Drafting
Checking a factual assertion in a pleading, letter or witness statement against the record.
Hearing preparation
Assembling the documents on a point that spans several parts of the record.
In practice
In the example below, the answer draws together a purchase order and an email from different parts of the record.
The question and the answer
What does the record show about Atlas’s knowledge that the panel core had changed to polyethylene?
Two documents address the point.
Atlas’s purchase order of 14 May 2021 specifies a polyethylene core and records that it substitutes for the mineral-filled core previously quoted (ATL-PO-2207). On 17 June 2021 Marcus Ostrow of Atlas sent the Architect a revised data sheet, noting that the core designation now reads PE, with Kelmar copied (BRA-EM-0912).
Sources
The inferences to be drawn from the answer remain with counsel.
How it works
Answers are drawn only from the matter’s own documents, and from the Legal Knowledge Base where a question engages the law, with fact and law kept distinct. An independent verification step checks each sentence against its sources before the answer is shown, and an answer containing any unsupported sentence is withheld.